MAM

MUMBAI: Publicis Media Company Zenith has just released its new Advertising Expenditure Forecasts in which it predicts that global ad expenditure will grow 4.4 per cent in both 2016 and 2017, reaching USD 566 billion by the end of 2017. Zenith predicts that ad expenditure growth for India in 2017 stands at Rs. 54,344 crore (Rs 543.4 billion or USD 8 billion), up by 11.2 per cent over 2016.

Digital remains one of the fastest growing mediums in India registering a 30 per cent growth rate. Television will register an 11 per cent growth rate in 2017, print (newspapers) will grow at 7.6 per cent and all other media between 7-12 per cent.

Zenith India group CEO Tanmay Mohanty added, “India remains one of the few bright spot economies in the world. Ad spending in India is on a steady growth curve and likely to stay that way in 2017, buoyed by the State Elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, the upcoming Champions Trophy and continued expansion and growth of regional newspapers and television. In November, the central government introduced reform in the form of Demonetisation which is leading to some contraction in ad spends. We expect the demand for goods and services to pick up and this shortfall to be temporary. Demonetisation is expected to augur well for the economy long-term. In fact, we expect 2017 to see increased ad spending by categories such as Mobile Wallets, Telecom 4G, BFSI, Mobile Handsets, Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Consumer Durables.”

India is among the top ten contributors to ad spend growth, along with others such as USA, China, Indonesia, UK, Philippines, Japan, Germany.

However the global figures for 2017 forecast is down by 0.1 percentage point from the forecasts published in September after small downgrades in Asia Pacific, which nevertheless remains one of the fastest growing regions for ad expenditure.

This is a strong performance, given that the unexpected results of the UK’s referendum on EU membership and the US presidential election have increased political uncertainty and raised the risks of restrictions to international trade. 2017 also faces a tough comparison with the quadrennial year of 2016, when spend was buoyed by the US elections, the Summer Olympics, and the European football championships, as it is every four years.

After 2017 continued steady growth in global ad spend is expected, of another 4.4% growth in 2018 and 4.1 per cent in 2019. Global ad spend growth has been remarkably stable since 2010, growing at between four and five per cent a year, generally at or below the growth rate of global GDP. Before the financial crisis, advertising would typically exaggerate the wider economy, growing faster in times of expansion and shrinking faster during recessions, with frequent changes in year-on-year growth rates. More recently the global ad market appears to have entered a phase of more stable growth.

Over all, television remains the dominant advertising medium, attracting 36 per cent of total global spends in 2016. The internet is expected to overtake television to become the largest medium in 2017.